The Mind of Mahamudra: Advice from the Kagyu Masters

by Peter Alan Roberts (Translator), Thupten Jinpa Ph.D. Ph.D. (Editor)

Overview

The Mind of Mahamudra is the third volume in the Tibetan Classics series, which aims to make available accessible paperback editions of key Tibetan Buddhist works drawn from Wisdom Publications' Library of Tibetan Classics.

Enjoy six key texts on the cornerstone meditation practice of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism by some of its most celebrated forebearers.

The Mind of Mahamudra highlights mahamudra, the central meditation practice of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. The six texts range in date from the twelfth to the seventeenth century and include such celebrated authors as Lama Shang and the Third Karmapa. Mahamudra is essentially a simple, direct method for looking beyond our thoughts to the very nature of conscious experience. Mahamudra literally means "the great seal" and masters of this tradition have explained it to mean that everything is sealed with buddhahood, and there is no liberation to be attained other than what is already present. Mahamudra, it is said, is not attained not because it is too difficult, but because it is too easy; not because it is too far, but because it is too close; and not because it is hidden but because it is too evident. Because of its universality and directness, mahamudra meditation is particularly suited to the modern West. Eminent scholar Peter Alan Roberts draws on his thirty-plus years of experience of translating for Tibetan lamas to illuminate these benchmark translations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614291954
Publisher:	Wisdom Publications MA
Publication date:	01/06/2015
Series:	Tibetan Classics , #3
Edition description:	Translatio
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 2.40(d)

About the Author

Peter Alan Roberts was born in Wales and lives in Hollywood, California. He earned a BA in Sanskrit and Pali and a DPhil in Tibetan Studies from Oxford University (Harris-Manchester College). For more than thirty years he has been working as an interpreter for lamas and as a translator of Tibetan texts. He specializes in the literature of the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions with a focus on tantric practices, and he is the author of The Biographies of Rechungpa.

Thupten Jinpa Langri was educated in the classical Tibetan monastic academia and received the highest academic degree of Geshe Lharam (equivalent to a doctorate in divinity). Jinpa also holds a BA in philosophy and a PhD in religious studies, both from the University of Cambridge, England. Since 1985, he has been the principal English-language translator to the Dalai Lama. He has translated and edited many books by the Dalai Lama, including The World of Tibetan Buddhism, Essence of the Heart Sutra, and Ethics for the New Millennium. Jinpa has published scholarly articles on various aspects of Tibetan culture, Buddhism, and philosophy, and books such as Songs of Spiritual Experience (co-authored) and Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Thought. He serves on the advisory board of numerous educational and cultural organizations in North America, Europe, and India. He is currently the president and the editor-in-chief of the Institute of Tibetan Classics, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to translating key Tibetan classics into contemporary languages. He also currently chairs the Mind and Life Institute.

Table of Contents

General Editor's Preface ix

Translator's Introduction 1

1 The Unrivaled Instructions of Shang Rinpochc: The Preliminaries and Main Practice of the Great Meditation of Mahamudra Shönu Lha 13

2 The Ultimate Supreme Path of Mahamudra Lama Shang 39

3 A Record of Mahamudra Instructions Drukchen Pema Karpo 103

4 Instructions for the Mahamudra Innate Union Karmapa Rangjung Dorjé 125

5 Prayer for the Definitive Meaning, the Mahamudra Karmapa Rangjung Dorjé 147

6 The Bright Torch: The Perfect Illumination of the True Meaning of the Mahamudra, the Essence of All the Dharma Tselé Natsok Rangdröl 155

Notes 211

Glossary 229

Bibliography 243

Index 251

About the Contributors 261

Editorial Reviews

"Mahamudra is at the very heart of the Kagyü tradition, and these texts represent teachings from across the Kagyü schools. As a growing number of English-speaking Dharma students have begun to study mahamudra, there is a great need for English versions of essential works. Peter Alan Roberts is to be commended for his clear and erudite translation and informative annotation of these six texts, which were selected by my own tutor, Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, himself a great scholar, teacher, and practitioner of mahamudra. I am certain this compilation will bring great benefit to many."

The Seventeeth Karmapa

"Mind of Mahamudra offers the best of traditional contemplative literature in expertly crafted translation."

Kurtis R. Schaeffer

"The simplicity, depth, and elegance of these translations brings this most profound of all meditative traditions to life, for the general reader and the practioner alike. Eloquent testimony to the boundless realization of these Kagyu meditation masters."

Reginald A. Ray

"Quite simply, the best anthology of Tibetan Mahamudra texts yet to appear. It provides a point of entry into Mahamudra meditation as taught within the school for which it has been most important, the Kagyü. The translations of essential texts by such great Kagyü masters as Lama Shang, the Third Karmapa, Pema Karpo, and Tselé Natsok Rangdröl are accurate, accessible, and informatively annotated. Mind of Mahamudra should be on the shelf of every student of Tibetan meditation—and of everyone interested Tibetan Buddhism more generally."

Roger R. Jackson